Around the world it has proven very difficult to develop policies and interventions that ensure socio environmentally sustainable groundwater use and exploitation. In the state of Guanajuato, Central Mexico, both the national government and the decentralized state government have pursued to regulate groundwater use through direct state control, groundwater markets, energy pricing, and user self-regulation. We present and analyze these regulatory mechanisms and their outcomes in the field. We argue that the close interdependencies of these regulatory mechanisms have pre-empted the effectiveness of these policy instruments as well as that of other measures aimed at reducing groundwater use in order to advance towards sustainable exploitation levelsRead More

This article traces a policy shift that makes the ‘water user’ the main subject of water governance. From a Foucauldian perspective on governmentality these new subjectivities accompany neo-liberal governmental technologies to devolve autonomy from state institutions to an active user base, whilst retaining some ‘control at a distance’. The expectation is that individual subjects will incorporate control mechanisms and internalize norms and that this leads to new publicly auditable forms of self-regulation. The article questions the underlying assumption that policy necessarily accomplishes its strategic effects through governmentality. For this purpose, it draws on an ethnographic case study of how policy produced a new power/knowledge regime and how different societal actors and ‘user’ groups responded to that. The study specifically investigates the Mexican policy of irrigation management transfer during the 1990s, by which government transferred the public control over irrigation districts to locally organized water users’ associations (WUAs). The article argues that governmental technologies make and govern the ‘water user’ by discursively and materially constituting an organizational arrangement for user management (WUA), more than by directly acting on individuals’ self-regulated conduct. The analysis contributes to a broader reflection on the role of power/knowledge in natural resources management and decentralized resources governanceRead More

Several research efforts have focused primarily on policy implementation and improving innovative actions to address disaster risks. Discussions are ongoing on how to measure the effectiveness of policy implementation at the local level. But there is no definitive theory of effective policy implementation, and very few frameworks have been found acceptable as the basis of an analysis of the effectiveness of policy implementation, especially on droughts. Based on the 2009–2010 extreme drought in Yunnan, China, this article presents a modified framework to assess the effectiveness of policy implementation by defining policy, practice, and performance, as well as a feedback loop by which to share the lessons learned. Water conservancy projects in Luliang County and the agricultural diversity program in Longyang County in Yunnan Province were analyzed from a farmers’ perspective. It was found that farmers are highly dependent on government policies and projects, and the effectiveness of policies is measured by short-term, immediate, and tangible benefits rather than long-term adaptation strategies. The results highlight the urgent need to reduce risks by developing better awareness about climate change and drought and its impacts, increased understanding of drought hazards, and implementation of appropriate measures for long-term adaptationRead More

Neglected and underutilized food crops (NUFCs) have high nutritional value, but their role in achieving nutrition security is not adequately understood, and they do not feature in food and nutrition policies and programs of the countries of the Hindu-Kush Himalayan (HKH) region. Drawing examples from Pakistan and Nepal, this study investigates the importance of NUFCs in achieving nutrition security in the mountains and identifies key underlying reasons for the decline in their cultivation and use. The study found that the prevalence of malnutrition is significantly higher in the mountains than nationally in both Pakistan and Nepal and identifies the decline in the cultivation and use of micronutrient-rich NUFCs as one of the key reasons for this. The deterioration of local food systems, changing food habits, lack of knowledge about the cultivation, use and nutritional value of NUFCs and lack of attention to NUFCs in programs and policies are the key reasons for the abandoning of NUFCs by mountain communities. There is an urgent need to mainstream these crops into national programs and policies and to integrate them into local food systems. This will not only improve the nutrition security of mountain areas, but also biodiversity and local mountain economiesRead More